


Crossroads

by gwydionx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Surreal, trapped together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21803203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwydionx/pseuds/gwydionx
Summary: One second Jason's blasting the hell out of a cybernetic bug in Gotham. The next he's in a bar at the end of the universe.And he's not alone.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Draco Malfoy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [TheFightingBull](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFightingBull/pseuds/TheFightingBull) and [njw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/njw/pseuds/njw) for beta reading. :)

Jason had no idea what to think.

Scratch that. He had a hundred ideas what to think. He could fill volumes on what to think, how many different scenarios this could be. None of them were good.

He stood in a bar. One of those age-old joints with posters from decades ago hanging on wood-paneled walls, classy cushioned chairs and a jukebox in the corner. Old, but well-kept. Well-lit, too, though it all came from over-the-table lighting and yellow-gold sconces along the back wall. The whole thing had a classy, laid back feel to it, wrapped in scotch and nostalgia.

Normal enough. Except the second before, he’d been blasting the hell out of a cybernetic bug in the Gotham subway.

Not how he saw today going.

And across from him, fifteen feet down the bar, stood a man. Tall, without much bulk. Button-up shirt and slacks. No visible weapons. Disoriented—the guy scanned the room in panic.

His eyes locked on Jason.

Jason raised his gun the same time the man hissed, “_Protego! _”

The first bullet glanced off a force field that appeared around the guy, which—_ what the fuck_. But Jason was already rolling in anticipation of counter fire. The air exploded in some kind of silver energy, and Jason darted left behind the cover of the counter. A chair bashed across his back, sending him sprawling.

Jason spun with guns raised, expecting to find another goon behind him, but found only air.

It disoriented him for a split-second, long enough for another chair to come barreling through the air like it was being freaking mind-lifted. And that told Jason all he needed to know.

He pulled the cord on a smoke bomb off his belt and hucked it over the counter in the general direction of the stranger, only to hear another cried command, a whoosh of air, and a distinct lack of smoke.

Perturbed, he chanced a glance over the top of the bar and saw the smoke disappear in a miniature cyclone the man hardly seemed to pay notice to.

Bastard.

The man spotted him and strode forward with a menacing sneer.

Jason ducked back behind the counter, assessing his options.

“Who sent you!” The stranger’s voice cut the air. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Jesus…” Jason cursed. Of course the guy would be just as clueless (and trigger happy) as he was. A light bulb shattered above his head. “This wasn’t me!” he bellowed, loud enough to carry over the din. “Cut the light show!”

A stool that was levitating clanked to the ground. The room went quiet.

Jason gripped his guns.

“Surrender your weapons,” the stranger’s voice demanded.

Jason huffed a laugh. “You first, asshole.”

The man grumbled under his breath—British, he noted. Oxford, with a hint of something else.

“Look, I got no clue what happened here,” he tried again. “But seems like we’re in the same boat. So how about a truce?” He left the ‘temporary’ bit implied. His shoulder still ached from where that last chair had hit him.

From the silence, he guessed the other guy was thinking the same thing.

“You really wanna figure out what’s happening here? It’s not gonna work if we’re blowing each other to pieces.”

Finally, a growled “Fine” made its way around the corner.

“You done throwing fireworks at me?” he called.

“…For the moment.” Jason didn’t miss the ice in the guy’s tone.

“Arrogant shit,” he muttered. But he was getting nowhere trapped behind the bar. “Alright, I’m coming out!” he warned.

When no return answer came, he heaved an exhale. He was half-tempted to incapacitate the guy anyway. But what he said had been true—if the guy had been abducted too, neither of them were going to do better on their own. Both guns steady, he slowly rose from his crouch and stepped out into the open.

The stranger stood, muscles braced and pointing a stick at him. An honest-to-God stick.

“Alright, buddy.” He tried to sound friendly, though he’d yet to decide whether this was an opponent or ally. “Why don’t we start with names?”

The man huffed, a ghost of a sneer on his face. “That won’t be necessary. Explain yourself.”

Jason gripped his gun tighter. “Lower your stick, and I will.”

Affronted. “It’s not a bloody _ stick_, you cretin.”

“Great,” Jason said. “Peachy. Put it down.”

The man hesitated. “You said our predicament was similar.”

Jason snorted. _ Un-fucking-believable_. “Do you have any idea why we’re here?”

“Where is _ here_?” The man lowered his stick. Slightly.

“No fucking clue. Know what brought you here?”

Knit brows. “Not in the slightest.”

“Me either. Same boat.”

The man surveyed him head to foot, then lowered his hand.

Jason took that as his cue the guy wasn’t going to blast him again. And least not yet. He lowered his guns and made for the door. “First order of business is figuring out where we are. Any reason someone nasty would wanna abduct you?”

His mouth twisted in an amused sneer. “I can think of several.”

Jason had reached the front doors—wide glass ones that looked out onto… nothing. The blackness beyond wasn’t just darkness, it was thick, intangible. Like the void between stars. “Great,” he muttered. On impulse, he tried the handle just to see—locked. For a split-second he considered blowing the glass, but his gut told him that would probably end badly. Better not to irretrievably break whatever seal kept the void _ out there _ and not _ in here_. Not without a plan.

“Well, that makes two of us,” he said in answer. “And I’m not really in the mood to let some inter-dimensional asshole make meat out of me, so—”

“_Stupefy! _”

The blast came without warning. As the light washed over him, Jason was already in motion, gun drawn and pointed back at the stranger, who stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

...

Draco had had enough. Not only was he trapped in an unidentified, beer-soaked Muggle bar, he was trapped with a heavily-armed lunatic whose idea of comprehensible speech was somewhere between troll and an inebriated dock-worker. If the man was as ignorant as he claimed, it was better to incapacitate him until he worked this bloody situation out on his own.

It was a good plan. A calculated plan.

Up to the point it had absolutely no effect.

The spell washed over the man like water over rock. The man stood, very much animated, and very, _ very _ angry. Draco stared down the barrel of a gun he never saw drawn.

“What the fuck was that?” the thug growled.

Draco’s startled expression didn’t fall. _ How… _He wasn’t some first-year with no concept of aim or wand mechanics. That spell should have leveled the man. Should have stopped him dead in his tracks.

“What the fuck was that!” the man demanded, stepping closer. “You piece of shit, I said a goddamn truce! What the hell did you just fire at me!”

His brows furrowed. This didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. “You’re… You’re not a Muggle.”

The thug looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “What?”

“The guns,” he replied. “I just assumed…” Draco’s eyes narrowed, and his tone fell to accusing. “Why the bloody hell are you carrying _ guns_?”

“To shoot douchebags who throw chairs at me,” he snarled. “Is that what this is? You thought I was a sorcerer? Some kind of secret order, or what?”

Draco fumbled for answers, for this to make any bit of sense. How had the man avoided his magic, if he knew nothing about it? “It’s not a secret order, you insufferable idiot. Where do you come from? Who taught you?”

“You don’t even want to know.” He moved toward the opposite end of the bar. “I don’t make a habit of shooting people unless they deserve it, but you’re pushing the line. Next time you throw something at me, it’ll be bullets coming back at you. Got it?”

The proposition itself was absurd. But the way that spell had rolled off the man… Draco was assessing his options. “What do you propose, then?”

The thug didn’t flinch. “Put your stick away, and we’ll find out.”

Draco sneered. “It’s _not— _"

“—A stick. Yeah, we’ll get there,” he threw back. “Put it away.”

Draco complied, reluctantly, and slid the wand into his pocket. For what good it seemed to do against the man anyway. “You’re bloody insane.”

“Better than being dead."

Draco winced. _ Fair enough_.


	2. Chapter 2

It didn’t take long for Jason to establish there were no other ways out of the bar. A swinging door behind the counter led to a kitchen—fully stocked, from the looks of it—but what should have functioned as a back door proved to be locked tight as the rest of it. Jason combed every inch of the bar, tapped on walls, scanned what he could. The place was freaking air-tight and atmospherically sealed.

His comms were dead, his mask and helmet apparently failed to make the trip. He got nothing on any of his GPS instruments. Everything was active and still functional, as far as he could tell. The tech just had no idea of where he was. Which, given the extended range he’d given it after his last trip through a wormhole to the other side of the freaking universe, said a hell of a lot.

“Great,” he cursed under his breath. “Fucking great.”

At least he still had his guns.

He pushed his way back through the swinging door. Blondie stood where he’d left him.

Jason reached over the counter to grab a bottle of scotch with a weary sigh. “I’m out of ideas.”

The man stood staunchly. Jason saw his fingers twitch, as if anticipating a movement.

He used his teeth to pop the cork. “Go ahead. Do your voodoo.”

...

Draco was divided between voicing his affront, and the very real repercussions of displaying even more magic in front of a (very) belligerent Muggle.

As if reading his thoughts, the thug took a swig of the liquor. “Come on, you’ve already blasted me six ways to Sunday with the fireworks. No point in holding back now.”

Draco cringed. “It’s not _ fireworks_. It’s magic. The sort I very much doubt you are capable of comprehending.”

The man offered a sly smirk that said one too many things about his opinion of Draco. “Then show me what you got.” He leaned back against the counter. “Not like I got anyone to tell.”

Draco huffed, but did not forget this man had proved impervious to his spell. “Fine. Stand back.”

The thug raised a single scarred brow, but didn’t move.

_ Idiot_.

With nothing else for it, Draco stepped out into the middle of the bar. “_Revelo_.”

He sensed the spell expand the moment it left his wand, a bright light blooming into the dim air of the Muggle bar. It filled the space like a welling tide, rushing out to the reaches of his own view, filling every corner of the room.

When the light faded—nothing. Everything remained as it was.

The thug whistled. “Impressive… What’d it do?”

Draco pressed his eyes closed and took a breath before answering. “It was meant to reveal magic. Anything charmed or otherwise modified with it.”

He looked around the room. “Guess that’s a no.”

“At the very least it means your drink isn’t poisoned. Not by magic, anyway.”

The man paled a little. Draco couldn’t help a smirk.

He tried every spell he knew. Trace, reveal, open, revert. He tried apparition, floo powder—not that there was a fireplace for it to succeed. De-charm, unlock, disillusion, revert. Over the next hour he threw every incantation he could think of.

Nothing.

At last, he slumped at the thug’s side by the bar and took the bottle from him.

“Dead end?”

Draco harrumphed, and waved his hand toward the glass tumblers on the shelf behind the bar. One levitated seamlessly to clank down in front of him.

Pleased he wasn’t _ completely _ impotent in this place, he poured himself a finger and swallowed in a single go.

The man watched the display with silent appraisal. “So what’s the deal, anyway? You a magician, or what?”

Draco glanced across to him with an incredulous stare.

“I mean it,” he kept on. “I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit. Nothing like that, though.”

He sneered. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

“So, what is it? Deal with a demon? Magical artifacts?”

“Are you always this dense?”

The thug’s eyes narrowed.

...

Jason was done with this shit. “Most of the commands are basic Latin,” he started. “So it’s Earth-based, at least in recent centuries. Teleportation didn’t work for you—yeah, I noticed that bit, thanks—and the disarming and reverting spells didn’t work, either. Scrying was a nil game, so you fell back on the only option left, which was calling for help. But it didn’t go through.” Jason leaned back, and set the bottle down on the counter with a thunk. “So I dunno. You tell me. How fucking dense am I?”

Blondie stared at the floor for a minute more. Guy actually looked chastised, though Jason couldn’t tell if it was because he had grossly underestimated him as a companion, or as an opponent.

“Wizard,” he gave at last. “Not magician.”

Jason assessed this without comment. “Do I get a name now? Or should I keep calling you jackass-with-a-stick?”

“…Draco.”

Despite himself, a smile ghosted across his face. “Call me Jason.” He might live to regret that. But seeing as how neither of them looked to be going anywhere, it was kind of a moot point.

Draco took this in silence. After a minute of staring at the warm wood panels of the decor, he turned in his seat, hunching over the counter. “What are your theories then?”

Jason’s smile grew an inch. “What, think I may actually have something to contribute now?”

“You’ve proved your skills for observation, I admit. I still can’t speak to your sanity.”

Jason set the scotch down on the counter with a breathy laugh. “Neither can I.”

Draco turned more definitely toward him. “You say you’ve never seen magic.”

“I said I’ve never seen magic like _ that_.”

Draco’s brows furrowed. “What other kind is there?”

Jason couldn’t help but shake his head. “The kind that doesn’t let dead things lie,” he muttered.

Draco eyed him warily, but didn’t comment.

“So where are we at?” Jason decided with renewed focus. “Random bar in the middle of God-knows-where. Could be deep space, could be another dimension. No way out that doesn’t involve busting glass and potentially vacuuming us out into a wormhole. No jail keeper, that I can tell…” He inhaled, spinning the bottle and trying to collect his thoughts. “You said you had people after you. Why?”

“I said there were reasons someone might abduct me,” he amended.

The edge of bitterness in his voice wasn’t lost to Jason. He assessed this man anew, trying to figure what kind of person he was. Apart from the magic, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly… menacing about him. There was a chill to his ice-blue eyes, and now that he looked, a shattered quality, like he’d seen things that didn’t belong in words. The way he’d lit up the bar when Jason first came through stuck in his mind—the guy was quick on the draw, and vicious, but hadn’t gone for the kill. Not right off the bat.

“Anyone in particular?” Jason tried. “Anyone who would be capable of… this?” He gestured vaguely to their surroundings.

Draco actually paused to give it thought. “Perhaps.”

“Huh.” He took this in, assessed it. He’d be lying to say his curiosity wasn’t piqued. “Well, same goes here. So maybe that’s our starting point.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s gotta be a reason we’re the only ones here, right? That we know of.” If it was bigger than them, shit got a whole lot more complicated, and if Jason had learned anything in his years of dealing with insanity, it was best to start with the obvious and worry later. “We find the connection, we have a better idea what we’re up against. So who’re the assholes who want you gone?”

Draco leveled him in a glare.

“Fine. Start smaller. Where were you before you came through? What was happening around you?”

“In my library at home,” Draco offered with reservation. “Reading. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to herald… this.”

“Where’s home?”

“Wiltshire, England. Or close enough to it. You?”

Jason bit his lip. “Eastern Seaboard. U.S.”

Draco eyed him incredulously. “I suppose that explains the guns,” he muttered.

His mouth pulled a smirk. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an ass?”

Draco didn’t dignify that with a response. He poured himself another drink. “Where were you, then? What were you doing?”

Jason held back. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted this guy to know—what would be dangerous. “The subway.”

“They let _ you _ ride the subway,” Draco challenged with skepticism. “Looking like… that.”

Jason glanced down to his armor. That was gonna be a hard sell. “They do when there’s a killer robot on it.”

For a split-second, Draco’s eyes went wide. Then he added another two fingers to his glass. “Bloody Americans.”

Jason shrugged. “Better’n fighting killer mimes in Paris.”

“Paris.”

Jason offered a roguish smile. “I’m as international as they come, jackass.”

Draco didn’t know whether to be offended or amused anymore. “And clearly it’s done wonders for your culture.”

He shrugged at this. “Kinda hard to take in the sights when your dance card is full with psychopaths and murderers.” He didn’t mention he _ had _seen the Louvre, and had breakfast atop the Arch de Triumph the morning they left. Roy didn’t much care, but he’d yet to find a place to beat the view.

“So, is that what you do?” Draco said. “Mercenary for hire, killing whatever poor soul steps in your path?”

There was a hint of distaste in the guy’s tone, and Jason couldn’t help but shake his head. “Figures you'd be one of 'em.”

“One of who?” he snapped.

Jason almost rolled his eyes. “Rich-ass trust fund brats who think you can solve anything by throwing enough money at it. Instead of getting dirt on your own hands.”

A flicker of something—guilt, or maybe grief—darted across Draco’s sharp features. Then, just as quick, it was gone. “I never said I came from money.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Draco fell quiet. “Yes, well… I’m sure _ you _ don’t do what you do for anything as mundane as money.”

“I kill child predators and mass murderers because they deserve it,” Jason growled back. His eyes fell, focused on the swirl of wood beneath his glass. “And I sure as hell don’t get paid for the trouble,” he added. _ Not usually. _

Draco stared at him for moments, like he was a particularly troubling puzzle. “You are not what I expected.”

“Still wondering about my sanity?” Jason cringed.

“No, I’m quite confident you’re insane.” Draco eyed his glass. “But seeing as this entire night has been madness, complaining seems pointless.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Jason raised his drink.

They sat in silence for minutes, each lost in thought. Draco finished his glass, and stared at it like it held the answers to the universe.

At last, he gave in with sigh of defeat. “Those people… Would you like them alphabetically, or by severity of motive?”

Jason’s brow darkened. “Yeah… This is gonna be a long night.”


End file.
